Friendly Fill-Ins and Photo Fails

Hello, friends! I'm sorry this is so late. Not only did a crazy day at work happen yesterday, but then I made the rookie cat mom mistake of leaving my laptop sitting open and exposed. Thimble took advantage of the situation, as she always does, and found a way to lock my keyboard. I could not use the keyboard at all, and I didn't know why. I finally discovered she had turned on something called Filter Keys, and apparently the way to fix it is to hold the Shift key down for 8 seconds. I had never heard of this before, but that didn't stop Thimble from figuring out how to do it. She certainly enabled it much, much, much faster than I figured out what had happened and how to fix it.

Anyway. We're back up and running, finally, and now we're ready for the Friendly Fill-Ins. Please feel free to join us! My co-host Ellen of 15andmeowing came up with the first two fill-in statements, and I came up with the second two.


1. My main concern right now is _________.

2. I plan to _________ for Halloween this year.

3. If I saw a ghost, I would _________.

4. This time of year, _________ is a personal tradition of mine.

My answers are below in bold.

1. My main concern right now is finding a good work-life balance.
(Despite my best intentions and many failed efforts to fix this, I've bene struggling with my work-life balance for many, many months now, which regulars to our blog have probably noticed with our late posts and plethora of other blog inconsistencies. That said, blogging about my furry family is a hobby that I'm not willing to give up because it means a lot to me. So do my hobbies like drawing, writing, reading, and so forth. We had an especially lengthy busy time at my work this year, which was followed up by one of my best co-workers giving his two weeks' notice after he received a wonderful opportunity in another state. I've already mentioned all of this, so I'll stop being a broken record now. The point is, now that my new co-worker will be officially be starting at his new position on Monday, and therefore things at work can start to resemble some semblance of normalcy, I will be doing everything I can to stick to routines and schedules that allow me to put time and effort toward my hobbies with just as much consistency as I put towards my full-time job. I've mentioned before that when it comes to my full-time job I am the type of person who is not willing to live to work, but rather to work to live. Did I ramble enough there? Yeah? Good.)

2. I plan to dress up as a black cat as I hand out candy for Halloween this year.
(I did the same last year. I have a black cat onesie, complete with ears and a tail, and so obviously I'm a black cat.)

3. If I saw a ghost, I would hope it was my calico angel Rosie.
(I have no doubt she would be a friendly ghost, and I'd love to have a real, true visit from my Rosie.)

4. This time of year, visiting a local jack-o'-lantern display is a personal tradition of mine.
(A local family who grows and sells pumpkins at their pumpkin patch always invites hundreds of people to come out and carve hundreds of pumpkins, and then for a couple of days around Halloween they put them all out for display at night. My mom and I visit this every year, and we're visiting it tonight. I look forward to this so much, as for this reason and that, jack-o'-lanterns are one of my favorite things about Halloween.)

Now it's your turn!

To add your link to the Friendly Fill-Ins Linky list, just click HERE!

You can also click on the badge below to add your link.

You are also welcome to complete the fill-ins in the comments below,

or in the comments on Ellen's blog, 15andmeowing.

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And now it's time for the Pet Photo Fails Blog Hop, hosted by none other than Melissa and Mudpie of Melissa's Mochas, Mysteries, & Meows.

As always, our resident blooper queen Eddy is more than ready to share some photo shoot outtakes. Today's star not only Eddy, but that strangely stuffed black cat who's been hanging around our house. Don't worry, because Eddy found some bloopery ways to photo bomb the fellow.

Happy Friday, friends!

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Halloween Flashback Doodle of the Day

So here's where I did a personal no-no sort of related to my fill-in #1 above. After a hectic day at work yesterday, and then after having to research and fix the weirdness that innocent little Thimble did to my computer, I not only failed to get this post topped off and scheduled yesterday, and I not only am getting it posted late this morning, but I apparently forgot to upload my new Halloween doodle for today. Now I don't have access to the scanned file, and so we're going to have to break the chain of a week straight of new Halloween doodles. I haven't decided yet if I'll now share today's intended doodle tomorrow or Sunday in addition to those day's doodles, or if we'll just extend Halloween a bit more and share it with a couple of other Halloweenish ones early in November.

Anyway, I at least have an apt flashback that I haven't yet shared. I believe this one might be from 2018. I created it as a banner for our blog that year, and it stars none other than my calico angel Rosie, who I mentioned in fill-in #3 today.

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Tip of the Day

If you think it might be fun and festive for your furbaby to get in the Halloween spirit with a chocolaty treat, consider getting them some goodies made with carob. Carob is a chocolate alternative, and it can give items such as candy and baked goods an appearance and even flavor that is similar to chocolate. What's more, carob does not contain the component found in real chocolate that is toxic to cats and dogs. There are carob pet treats on the market, and even items such as cookies for furbabies are sometimes made with carob. So, if you think your kitty or pup might enjoy some chocolaty treats of their own while you enjoy some candy on Halloween, then consider the safe and festive alternative that is carob.